In the early nineteenth century, Henry Maudslay, an engineer from a humble background, opened a factory in Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, a stone's throw from the Thames. Maudslay invented precision engineering, which made the industrial revolution possible, helping Great Britain become the workshop of the world.

He developed mass production, interchangeable components, and built the world's first all-metal machine tools, which quite literally shaped the modern world. Without his inventions, there would have been no railways, no steam-ship industry and no mechanised textiles industry.

His factory became the pre-Victorian equivalent of Google and Apple combined, attracting the best in engineering talent. The people who worked left to set up their own businesses. These included Joseph Clement, who constructed the Difference Engine, the world's first computer, and Joseph Whitworth, who moved to Manchester and by the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851 was deemed the world's foremost mechanical engineer.

David Waller is an author, business consultant and former Financial Times journalist specialising in business and the nineteenth century.

Preface: The Queen and the Machines; 1. Building Blocks and Boring Machines - The Portsmouth Block Factory; 2. Maudslays - The Most Complete Factory in the Kingdom; 3. The Maudslay Men; 4. A Wonderful Undertaking - The Thames Tunnel; 5. Richard Roberts and the Iron Man of Manchester; 6. Charles Babbage, Joseph Clement, and the Mechanization of Thought; 7. The True Birth of the Railways; 8. James Hall Nasmyth - The Steam-Hammer and Entrepreneurial Triumph in Manchester; 9. The Maudslay Men and the Transport Revolution; 10.The Turn of the Screws - Sir Joseph Whitworth and the Quest for Mechanical Perfection; 11. The Great Lock Controversy of 1851; 12. Capital vs Labour: The Great Lock-Out of 1852; 13. Instruments of Destruction; 14. Endings and Legacies